Editor: Viv Edwards (University of Reading, UK)
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Volume: 17 Number: 4 Page: 281–302
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Entering the List: Campaigning for Bilingual Education on the Net
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Frank Monaghan
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This paper describes and explores the activities of members of a listserv group in their efforts to defend bilingual education in Arizona. Their anonymity has to be preserved as this is a politically sensitive
issue and they might be professionally compromised by publishing any identifying details. During the period under discussion they were campaigning against the inclusion of a proposition (Proposition 203)
on an electoral ballot to outlaw bilingual education. The ballot was sponsored by the millionaire computer entrepreneur Ron Unz, who had successfully financed a similar move in California – the infamous
'Proposition 227'. The paper attempts to delineate the ways in which such a 'virtual' group develops the cohesion it requires in order to sustain its activities in the absence of direct, face-to-face contact.
It reports on a survey carried out amongst its members to discover their diverse reasons for joining and remaining in such a group and the level of their active involvement within it. In seeking to document
the motivations and activities of a listserv it inevitably sets up a model for others to examine and, possibly, emulate.
© Multilingual Matters 2003
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